Welcome to Turn 9 of The Impaller versus The World, a game that everyone gets to participate in! For more information about the game, view this blog post.

Here's how the game started, for reference:

The winning item from last time was number 1: Play reinforcement card. Deploy 7 to Danmark Havn and 13 to Argentina. Attack Kangerlussuaq with 4. Attack Itseqqortoormiit with 4. Transfer 1 to to Danmark Havn. Transfer 2 to Svalbard.

Here's what we did:

Here's the outcome:

• The World plays a reinforcement card for 5 extra armies

• The Impaller: Deploy 1 to Cuba

• The World: Deploy 7 to Danmark Havn

• The World: Deploy 13 to Argentina

• The Impaller: 6 armies transferred to Brazil from Colombia

• The World: 4 armies captured Kangerlussuaq from Danmark Havn. 1 attacking armies killed, 2 defending armies killed.

• The World: 4 armies captured Itseqqortoormiit from Danmark Havn. 1 attacking armies killed, 2 defending armies killed.

• The Impaller: 2 armies captured Panama from Colombia. 1 attacking armies killed, 1 defending armies killed.

• The Impaller: 2 armies captured Mexico from Cuba. 1 attacking armies killed, 1 defending armies killed.

• The World: 1 army transferred to Danmark Havn from Svalbard

• The World: 2 armies transferred to Svalbard from Norway

• The Impaller: 11 armies captured South Africa from Kenya. 1 attacking armies killed, 2 defending armies killed.

• The World still has a blockade card. 3/6 order priority, 4/5 order delay, 1/4 reinforcement, 9/19 blockade.

Here are our options:

1. Goal: Take the Greenland bonus. Position ourselves to potentially take South America next turn or move into Africa.
   -Deploy 6 to Kangerlussuaq, 5 to Itseqqortoormiit and 4 to Argentina. Attack Brazil with 17. Attack Colombia with 5. Attack Qaanaaq with 7. Attack Nuuk with 4. Attack Iceland with 4. Transfer 1 to Itseqqortoormiit. Transfer 2 to Danmark Havn.

2. Goal: Defend the Antarctica bonus. Try to gain solid positioning in South America.
   -Deploy 15 to Novolazerevskaya. Attack Brazil with 15. Attack Colombia with 3. Attack Nuuk with 2. Attack Nuuk with 2. Transfer 1 to Itseqqortoormiit. Transfer 2 to Danmark Havn.

3. Goal: Defend Antarctica with enough of our income to stop Impaller's current force in South Africa. Take Brazil. Move towards gaining control of the Greenland bonus.
   -Deploy 7 to Novolazerevskaya, 1 to Itseqqortoormiit, 1 to Kanggerlussuaq and 6 to Argentina. Attack Brazil with 24. Attack Nuuk with 3. Attack Iceland with 3. Transfer 1 to Kang. Transfer 2 to Danmark Havn.

4. Goal: Take the Greenland bonus. Blockade Antarctica. Take more control of South America.
   -Deploy 5 to Kangerlussuaq, 6 to Itseqqortoormiit, 3 to South Pole and 1 to Argentina. Attack Brazil with 16. Attack Colombia with 3. Attack Qaanaaq with 7. Attack Nuuk with 4. Attack Iceland with 4. Transfer 1 to Kangerlussuaq. Transfer 2 to Danmark Havn. Blockade South Pole.

5. Goal: Take the Greenland bonus. Move towards India. Gain greater control of South America.
   -Deploy 5 to Kangerlussuaq, 6 to Itseqqortoormiit and 4 to Ufa. Attack Brazil with 15. Attack Colombia with 3. Attack Qaanaaq with 7. Attack Nuuk with 4. Attack Iceland with 4. Transfer 1 to Kangerlussuaq. Transfer 2 to Danmark Havn. Attack Eastern Kazakhstan with 4.

6. Goal: Defend Antarctica with enough armies to stop Impaller's current force. Attempt to take the Greenland bonus. Gain greater control of the South America bonus.
   -Deploy 7 to Novolazerevskaya, 4 to Kangerlussuaq and 4 to Itseqqortoormiit. Attack Brazil with 16. Attack Colombia with 2. Attack Qaanaaq with 6. Attack Nuuk with 3. Attack Iceland with 3. Transfer 1 to Itseqqortoormiit. Transfer 2 to Danmark Havn.

Click here to vote

You should interpret the stars as follows:

• 0 Stars means "I don't care" or "I'm indifferent to this item."

• 1 Star means "I'm positive we should not do this."

• 2 Stars means "I don't think we should do this."

• 3 Stars means "Maybe we should do this."

• 4 Stars means "I think we should do this."

• 5 Stars means "I'm positive this is what we should do."

Use this thread to discuss strategy. Feel free to suggest new options and if there's enough demand, I'll add them for voting. Have votes in before the end of the day SUNDAY (JUNE 19th) and check back MONDAY (June 20th) for the next turn!

Weird. Who could have predicted that?

At this point I'd again suggest a couple moves that aren't on the list.

Impaller has a card, so he should place 19 this turn, but he can't put all 26 in Brazil, and even if he does, we'll be able to take it away from him eventually. More likely, he'll put a token force at most in Brazil, and put the rest in South Africa to make sure he breaks our bonus. This is his big get-back-in-the-game gambit, so he has to hit us hard, which is why he sent so many armies in the first place. So my options are:

Option BF1

• Deploy 3 to the easternmost country in Antarctica, whatever the name is. Blockade it at the end of the turn. A turn from now, he's going to be wondering if we're coming for him in India/Indonesia.
• Deploy 12 to Argentina
• Attack Brazil with everything we've got.
• Move other armies into position in Greenland.

Option BF2

• Deploy 7 to the easternmost country in Antarctica, whatever the name is. Blockade it at the end of the turn. A turn from now, he's going to be wondering if we're coming for him in India/Indonesia.
• Deploy 8 to Argentina
• Attack Brazil with everything we've got.
• Send four from Antarctica into Australia, quick before the blockade goes off
• Move other armies into position in Greenland.

We could certainly try to defend Antarctica, but I think that's a huge mistake. We maintain our advantage through superior position and the ability to take Greenland next turn. In order to get superior position, we blow through Brazil, threatening both to take South America and to head into Africa, and put him back in the position of guessing.

I know that my suggestions are often considered "collossally stupid", so please take this with a grain of salt.

I like BF1 :/

Actually, one more tweak - we could put one army each in the greenland 3's, and attack the 2's with them. If it works, great. If it doesn't, at least we find out now. The remainder armies will be out of position for taking the other parts of Greenland anyways, so this may give us a bargain price for taking a 5 point bonus two turns from now.

Take them out of the Argentina-Brazil attack.

I like taking Greenland (deploying 11 armies) and continuing to slide toward Canada. I see no hurry on a blockade as a bust in Antartica can't reach east or west territories next turn (using armies there now is inefficient). We can't stop the bust if he comes at us with everything, so we need to replace the lost 3 income with 5 more income.

We saw all 12 of his armies deployed again, so I'm not worried about his expansion. I expect him to prioritize busting Antartica -- so most of his 17 armies will go there. Our remaining 3 should deploy to Argentina.

I thought we saved our delay card -- T, are you sure we used it? If we have one I'd play it, but either way I'm thinking it would be good to make our last move(s) to attack from Argentina either (i) Brazil and Columbia with 13 and 8 or (ii) Brazil with 21.

Next turn it may make sense to blockade SW corner of Antartica (or use our 16 income to set a block).

So Brazil isn't even remotely a priority for you? I don't get that at all.

What does it mean to not be "remotely a priority"? I suggested attacking it with 11 or 21. Did you even read my post?

sry make that 13 or 21

You're only adding three to Argentina, and he already has 7 in Brazil, which he moved there last turn.

I agree that he will likely put most of his armies in South Africa, but he has a card, and I expect him to put at least a couple of his 17 in Brazil, too.

The nightmare scenario for your move is that he puts enough in Brazil that he can wipe us out of South America when we attack and clang. Not likely, but possible, and until last turn, you seemed to think South America was hugely important, so I'm surprised you'd risk it.

I like option 4, but I wouldn't neccessarily attack Brazil...

Swapping a 3 bonus for a 5 isn't too bad...
And if we get a decent blockade in South Pole he has his stack of armies down there that can't do anything except move back up through Africa, either taking 5 turns to get somewhere useful or expended getting the 3-bonus of South Africa...

Our armies in South America no longer need to protect the Antarctica bonus, so they could all move up to Colombia (probably first move) just to keep things fresh :p

If he doesn't put lots into Brazil then we're almost guaranteed to take it from him next turn if we invest heavily there, then we have a stack next to his West Africa bonus...

Still have options for expansion into Australia, and Canada and Caucasus are there as well...

I think we should take Greenland this turn and put the remainder into Argentina.

I would would first capture Greenland, then move the other armies up there closer to Canada in a better position and then attack Columbia with 2 and Brazil with 20.

Blockading Antarctica seems unneccessary this turn.

@Xyphistor, Imp doesn't have West Africa, he has East Afica.

I haven't followed this from the beginning, so bear with me when I miss something :-)

Putting much effort into holding Antarctica seems like a bad idea, since it means basically putting everything there and thus halt expansion in Greenland. So I wouldn't recommend that. And without Antarctica to protect, I think those 19 in Argentina have to move where they can do more damage. So far so good. So screw Antarctica, we can block it later if we want.
Thing is, he might anticipate that if he's good. So he probably won't put too much effort into breaking Antarctica, but instead he could a) reinforce Brazil, or b) start expanding into Western U.S. Why Western U.S.? because he is undisturbed there, whereas Caucasus is always threatend by us from the other side (assuming he started somewhere in Asia as well? As I said, I haven't followed that closely).

I see 2 options:
a) Attack Colombia with 18; deploy 2 to Itseequowhatever and attack Iceland with 4; deploy 9 to Kanterlussuaq and attack Quanaaq with 7, Nuuk with 4); deploy 4 to Ufa and explore Eastern Khazakstan. Lose Antarctica, but gain Greenland.
or
b) Put everything to Argentina and take Brazil. Lose Antarctica, but threaten Africa next turn.

I have never played with him so I don't know his style, but what are the chances that he predicts that we decide that since we can't defend antarctica if he maximally reinforces so that we don't put anything there. He can then get away without putting anything there and still break the bonus. I might do that if I knew I was slightly behind and wanted to be a little risky.

Yes, that's a valid concern. And then Brazil becomes the most important position on the board.

I take it he received 12 armies last turn and has a reinforcement card left, so that makes a total of 24 he can gather in Brazil OR 27 in South Africa.

Worst cases:
We have 19+15=34, that's 33 to attack vs. 24 in Brazil (chance of taking the territory: 0%).
Of course, if he only put 10 to Brazil, we had a 99% of winning, but heknows that too ... so he WILL put more than 10 there. He can afford NOT to attack in Antarctica for one more turn, because 15vs10 we only have a 32% of beating him there, but he cannot afford to lose Brazil.
OR
We try to defend Antarctica with 16 vs. 26 (chance of that: 54%, not very promising either ...)
OR
We take Greenland with 7/4/4 armies (chance of all 3 attacks being successful: 72%)

I predict he puts 2-3 to SA and the rest to Brazil.

"The nightmare scenario for your move is that he puts enough in Brazil that he can wipe us out of South America when we attack and clang. Not likely, but possible, and until last turn, you seemed to think South America was hugely important, so I'm surprised you'd risk it."

That would be a disaster. But it strikes me as numerically nearly impossible (we have 22 -- he has a max of 24 with 100% deployed to Brazil). But I suppose we could limp out of Argentina with a couple of late 3 attacks instead of going all out with 21. If we have the DO card then I still like the all out 21 attack. He's extremely unlikley to load all 17 into Brazil and sit there. If he goes with a heavy deployment to Brazil he'll attack us -- and we can get the benefit of last attack with the card.

I think a delayed attack into Brazil with 21 is a smart play, especially if we plan to blockade the spot immediately south of it in Antartica next turn. If there's no DO and people think Imp is going to try a delayed counterpunch with nearly all his armies, then we can use small attacks, but I really think that risk is remote.

Taking Greenland and keeping the income advantage is essential.

I checked no DO card -- so I'll throw out both options (strong into Brazil on 7th move or weak into Columbia and Brazil as 6th and 7th orders):

7 Goal: Take the Greenland bonus. Very Safely try to take more control of South America.

-Deploy 5 to Kangerlussuaq, 6 to Itseqqortoormiit, 4 to Argentina. Transfer 1 from Siple to Argentina. Attack Qaanaaq with 7. Attack Nuuk with 4. Attack Iceland with 4. Transfer 1 to Kangerlussuaq. Transfer 2 to Danmark Havn. Attack Columbia with 3. Attack Brazil with 3.

8 Goal: Take the Greenland bonus. Aggressively take more control of South America.

-Deploy 5 to Kangerlussuaq, 6 to Itseqqortoormiit, 3 to Argentina and 1 to Siple. Transfer 1 from Siple to Argentina. Attack Qaanaaq with 7. Attack Nuuk with 4. Attack Iceland with 4. Transfer 1 to Kangerlussuaq. Transfer 2 to Danmark Havn. Attack Brazil with 21.

The only reason I have two attacks of 3 instead of just going at Columbia is that I think it's likely that Imp slides his armies voer to Columbia 1st mvoe and comes hard from South Africa. I want to get either Columbia or Brazil so we have a platform to fight for SA next turn.

Or he stacks up in Brazil, and holds all of the choke points into Africa

All possible choices involve attacking Brazil with 15-24 armies. I am missing the choice where Brazil won't be attacked at all. Could you please add:

9 - Goal: Take the Greenland bonus. Shift presence in South America towards Central America. Explore Caucasus.

Deploy 10 to Kangerlussuaq, 2 to Itseqqortoormiit, 3 to Ufa. Attack Colombia with 18. Attack Iceland with 4. Attack Quanaaq with 8. Attack Nuuk with 4. Transfer 1 to Kangerlussuaq. Transfer 2 to Danmark Havn. Attack Eastern Khazakstan with 3.

and

10 - Goal: Take the Greenland bonus. Careful expansion in South America. Explore Caucasus.

Deploy 10 to Kangerlussuaq, 2 to Itseqqortoormiit, 3 to Ufa. Attack Iceland with 4. Attack Quanaaq with 8. Attack Nuuk with 4. Transfer 1 to Kangerlussuaq. Transfer 2 to Danmark Havn. Attack Eastern Khazakstan with 3. Attack Colombia with 3.

Note:
I really think Quanaaq needs to be attacked with 8. If we attack with 7, chances of taking Greenland this turn will be merely 72%; with 8 it is a 84% chance.